What do you think: was the state’s image “rehabilitated”?
Rehabilitate in this case means returning the state’s image back to normal, just like it was, before people found out about how the whites in Mississippi was discriminating against the blacks, and the ill treatment towards the blacks.
In my opinion, I feel that the state’s image was not rehabilitated. Despite the court punishing the convict at that time who had escaped jail time, and sending him to a 20 year 3 term jail now, it is still unable to make up for the huge number of human lives lost at that time. Also, by doing this it is actually part of the juridical system, punishing those convicts, and they should not seek it as a way to restore their image, but as a form of poetic justice. At the current time now, the Mississippians wanted this punishment for their image to be restored, and I feel that this will not be possible because of many varying reasons.
Think about it this way, this image of Mississippi being a place where there were no fair share of human rights, and racial discrimination having been there for such a long time, and also with details of it being recorded down in historical books. With an image for so many years, and trying to remove it in such a short time, it would definitely not be possible, however if the Mississippians can actually slowly develop themselves, and show to the rest of the world that there is equality there between the races, then perhaps their state’s image will be rehabilitated. As we all know, time heals all wounds, and perhaps slowly, time would also heal up that huge hole in the image of the state of Mississippi.
How much do you know about the civil rights era in general?
The civil rights era was from the 1865 to the 1970. The civil rights era was basically an era, where people fought to give equal rights to all within America, including the blacks. Although it was met with resistance at first, in the end it succeeded. However, for most of this time, the blacks in Southern America were still treated as inferior beings, and were still discriminated.
Within these years, events in the 1940s and 1950s also pushed blacks to work harder for equality, and segregation policies in Southern America pushed blacks to move to Northen America, and also with the need of skilled workers, added in to pull factor of blacks moving over. This massive movement then became known as the Great Migration. From this, blacks also benefitted from this greatly and received support from various unions and Democratic Party.
Next, after world war 2, despite more than one million blacks helping to fight for America, they still stayed in segregated units, and received little thanks despite their help. Activists then questioned how the U.S. government fight for freedom and yet its very own citizens get treated as second-class citizens. Cold war ideology and politics thus played a role in helping blacks secure their rights.
Last but not least, with the final support by John F. Kennedy and civil right leaders, the president then pushed the civil rights act of 1964 to disallow discrimination on people. Last but not least, the later social politics also help to contribute to the equality of blacks now.
~Gordon Koh (15) 2i1
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